Dear lads & lasses

- I send this on to you good folks. Members of our Klong Toey Slum family. That we all rejoice in our Thai New Year & in our Thai Catholic Easter.

We did, didn’t we. We walked in the shadow of the Rainbow and tossed coins of gold across the midnight skies. Above the slums – above the pig pens. Above the water buffalo stalls. Where our beloved Catholics lived and worked in years gone by. That’s where I met many of you in yesteryear and yesterday and hopefully tomorrow. Learned to honor and respect you simply because you cared about the poor. Really.

And sometimes, really too often, the rainbow we used to see so clearly, goes faint in the sky, the dreams we had; we have to find them again, don’t we. We can’t live without them. Simply can’t exist. Like living on this earth and not knowing about Our Blessed Mother, Mary, the Mother of Jesus and forgetting how she looks after/protects each/ everyone one of us.

A couple days back, Friday, as we celebrated the last day of our school year here in Thailand, and also the Thai New Year, (13 April) with our 300 Klong Toey slum kindergarten kids gloriously splashing water and seeking a blessing from we adults, I watched Easter come early in the slums of Bangkok.

A true and modern Resurrection from the dead. Let me tell you about it. A retired police lady brought a little girl here, found her living under a bridge with a stray cat and a couple puppy dogs; a terribly bruised and abused little girl, , but she’s mostly okay now full of spark and fire and energy; goes to 1^st kindergarten. Nearly four years old. Her nick name is Miss Booey (Sweet Chinese plum ) and she’s near-sighted, so we got a good eye doctor to fit her with some glasses so she can see, and she’s promised (kind of ) not to lose her new glasses or break them (for a while anyway) and we tell her she looks beautiful when she wears them and she smiles, and when she smiles, Klong Toey Slaughter House ain’t a slum no more, and living under a bridge ain’t that no more, but like a heaven we all want to go to. A world become beautiful. And Miss Booey: she’s just now learning how to smile.

Yesterday, was our Mercy Centre School Thai New Year/ the water festival ( we celebrated some days early on the last day of school, while the kids are still with us ) for our slum kindergarten children : water splashing/blessing) and Miss Booey had never really learned how to play. Really. So she watched her nearly three hundred slum kindergarten classmates 4 – 5- year olds (her peers) with caution and silently - when she was sure no one would laugh or hit her with a bamboo twitch, after a few minutes, she found a girl friend, and they began to jump up and down together. And to giggle and then to laugh.

And even to splash water. And then she began to cry, so one of our teachers ran up to her and held her, and Miss Booey hung on tight. Teacher said … what’s wrong… and Miss Booey said … I’ve never been happy before and it’s so much fun to be happy. Teacher, is it okay. Can I do this every day. Can I have fun every day. Is it OK? And the teacher and all of us said Miss Booey… you can be happy and have fun whenever you want, and every day.

And then, like hungry little girls are supposed to do, even without proper manners, she ate a huge bowl of noodles, the teacher changed her into dry clothing and she took a nap with the other four year olds. The dry clothing so that Teddy Bear wouldn’t get wet and catch a cold.

Hey, lads and lasses If that ain’t real honest modern Easter, then I don’t know what is. As you know, all my love and respect to you - as we continue to walk in the shadow of the rainbow together into the setting sun and beyond the horizon. I wish you Blessings for the coming year and Blessings for Easter. If you know of a Miss Booey in your own neighborhood, please do tell her, it’s okay to be happy and have fun and smile and be nice to other kids.

The old Latin: This is the Day the Lord has Made. Hic est dies quam fecit Dominus.

- Humbly Fr Joe & all of us